The Longer Bodies (20 page)

She gave vent to a little scream of hideous laughter, and swung round upon Margaret.

‘I'll push the bathchair,' she said. ‘Go and gather the tribes together, child. I want everybody to come to the fair. It will do them a world of good.'

By dint of clever strategy, Margaret prevailed upon all but Francis Yeomond, Miss Caddick, and Kost to join the party.

‘I can see by your face,' began old Mrs Puddequet in her farewell speech to Mrs Bradley on the steps of the terrace, ‘that I am not going to enjoy my murders very much longer. In any case, I shall probably leave my money to one of the girls. The world will be a woman's world in another twenty years or so. So very annoying of Anthony to allow himself to be killed by Kost,' she went on. ‘Such short-sighted policy, though, to kill the goose who might have laid the golden eggs.' She seemed decidedly put out.

Mrs Bradley leaned over the stone balustrade and gazed benignly down upon the still-unfinished goldfish pond below.

‘And bits of brain, I suppose,' she murmured to herself. ‘Very interesting.'

‘No brains at all,' said old Mrs Puddequet, mistaking her meaning. ‘A bullet-headed, low-browed, bruising type of person; always in an unpleasantly belligerent state of intoxication or else in a mood of greasy servility which did not, upon any occasion which has passed into history, extend as far as kindliness to his wife. Poor unfortunate woman! I don't wonder she took her chance when she saw it.'

Mrs Bradley eyed the speaker with furtive interest. Then, looking fixedly at one of the ornamental stone balls on the stone baluster near at hand, she said:

‘You think so?'

‘We used to have two ornamental stone carvings at the head of the steps,' said old Mrs Puddequet, taking absolutely no notice whatever of the question, ‘but Amaris persuaded me to have them removed.'

‘I said they gave me a pain in the neck,' called out Amaris, who was standing at the gate of the sunk garden with Priscilla, Celia, and Hilary. ‘They were truly atrocious. If you want to see for yourself, they are in the garage behind the old bathchair.'

‘Behind what?' said Mrs Bradley, startled.

‘I suppose I may discontinue using a bathchair and order another if I choose?' said old Mrs Puddequet tartly. ‘As a matter of fact, the old one has no rubber tyres.'

Mrs Bradley nodded, and, for no obvious reason, picked up a small bulb-bowl which was standing on the floor of the terrace between two stone balusters and balanced it carefully on the top of the stone coping. Having placed it to her satisfaction, she was about to step back when her heel touched the wheel of the bathchair. Her fingers slipped on the smooth surface of the bowl, and it fell with a crash of breaking earthenware on to the crazy paving of the sunk garden below.

‘There, now,' said Mrs Bradley regretfully. ‘That comes of meddling with things which don't concern one.'

She apologized profusely, and, in an atmosphere rendered somewhat difficult by Great-aunt Puddequet's repeated observations on the clumsiness displayed by people who might be expected to exercise a little reasonable care, the party left the scene of the disaster and set out for the fair.

Hilly Longer, a small historic village with a Norman church designed possibly by one of the builders of Christchurch Priory, could be reached by a field-path which later struck across an arm of the New Forest, and, the day being fair and the party in excellent spirits at the thought of any change whatsoever in the daily routine of sports practices and police interrogation, it was unanimously decided to walk.

By the time they reached the outskirts of the village Mrs Bradley had acquired from various members of the party much valuable incidental information about the mysterious happenings of the past weeks. She learned, among other things, the true history of the gathering of the family at Longer; she heard of the two occasions on which a bloodstained javelin had been discovered on the sports field; she heard of the midnight fears of Priscilla Yeomond and of the midnight explorations of Clive Brown-Jenkins. She learned also of the first discovery of Hobson's body at the bottom of the mere; and, more than all this, she was able to form a very shrewd estimate of what everybody thought of everybody else, and the reasons for thinking so. As an item of immediate but passing interest she heard that Timon Anthony, having proposed marriage in turn to Amaris Cowes and Priscilla Yeomond, had even tried his luck with the youthful but intelligent Celia Brown-Jenkins. By each of them he had been repulsed.

‘Margaret Digot, too, I suppose,' she said, eyeing the unconscious girl with what was intended to be a whimsical smile, but which approached more nearly to the kind of grin with which an alligator on the banks of the Nile might view the coming of a chubby but careless baby.

‘Oh, Margaret turned him down ages ago,' said Priscilla. ‘She wrote and told me about it before we came down here. He used to visit there a great deal, but after that he didn't go any more.'

‘Which of these people have ever been to your house, child?' asked Mrs Bradley, skilfully losing the rest of the party among the crowds that thronged the fair. She held Margaret's arm and drew her out of the press and into a fortune-teller's booth. The fortune-teller, a young, coarsely good-looking girl of twenty-two or so, welcomed them gladly, but Mrs Bradley, having presented her with five shillings, waved her away until Margaret had answered the question.

‘Take your time,' said Mrs Bradley kindly. ‘I want you to be very, very sure of what you say. Madame' —she grinned evilly upon the black-browed Medea at the table—‘Madame will not mind waiting five minutes, I'm sure.'

‘At the pretty lady's pleasure,' said the sibyl, with an oily smirk.

Mrs Bradley eyed her with the gaze of a benevolently minded shark, and the woman took a step backward and averted her bold brown eyes.

Margaret sat down on one of the two small chairs with which the booth was furnished and rested her elbow on the table. As she thought of a name she repeated it aloud, and Mrs Bradley copied it under a cryptic heading, into her small and ever-ready notebook.

‘The man who invented the looseleaf system,' she said, recording the name of Timon Anthony in her minute and almost undecipherable handwriting, ‘probably sprang from parents who were criminals of genius.'

‘All the Yeomonds,' went on Margaret, frowning a little. ‘Oh, no! Not Francis. I'm sorry.'

Mrs Bradley wrote busily for a few seconds.

‘Both the Brown-Jenkins,' said Margaret, ‘and Richard Cowes.'

‘Not Amaris?' Mrs Bradley fixed her sloe-black eyes on the fortune-teller, who was inclined to become restless, for she had nothing whatever to do, and not all her native intuition could make head or tail of the conversation.

‘No, not Amaris,' replied Margaret.

‘Then, of course, there is Joseph Herring the rabbit fancier,' said Mrs Bradley thoughtfully, adding his name at the end of her list.

‘Is there anything—I suppose there is something at the back of all this?' said Margaret, laughing.

‘We will see,' said Mrs Bradley. She extended a yellow, clawlike hand to the woman behind the table.

‘Fourteen children, and beware of a tall young fellow with golden hair,' she observed, with a ghoulish cackle, before the unfortunate creature could say a single word. She withdrew her hand and seized that of the fortune-teller in a grip of steel.

‘Today someone will give you a pound note,' she announced, studying the grimy palm closely, ‘and no change will be required.' She let it go, and, opening her purse, drew out the sum she had named, and pressed it into the woman's hand.

‘Wherever have you two been?' demanded Priscilla a quarter of an hour later.

‘Having our fortunes told,' replied Mrs Bradley, who had spent a profitable five minutes in watching Amaris Cowes and the young man trying their luck at the coconuts. Amaris, who, taking full advantage of the halfway line allowed by the chivalrous proprietor to all ladies participating in the sport, had smashed four nuts to pieces with her first four balls and had then been refused a second threepennyworth of fun by a justly incensed fieldsman in a red-and-black-striped scarf which he wore in lieu, apparently, of either shirt or collar, turned at the sound of Mrs Bradley's voice and smiled tolerantly.

‘What about hoopla?' she enquired richly.

‘Not hoopla,' said Mrs Bradley succinctly. ‘Have you no respect for the laws governing gambling, gaming, and all pastimes having as their avowed object monetary gain or profit in kind? We will fling darts; we will shoot at coloured eggshells dancing on jets of water; we will even enter the maze of mirrors and make fools of ourselves to amuse the many-headed—but hoopla! No. It is against my principles to attempt to put a square peg into a round hole.'

The party laughed and capitulated. Arrived at the booth, Mrs Bradley demanded darts, and, flinging them one after another as quickly as she could, decorated her chosen target with a capital letter B —a
tour de force
which was applauded wildly by the onlookers, several of whom offered to lay her bets that she could not reproduce the initial letters of their own names with equal celerity. Upon Mrs Bradley's intimation, however, that she was liable to fits of extreme absentmindedness owing to having been dropped on her head at the age of two months and three days, and was never quite certain where she would begin hurling the darts next, the proprietress kindly but firmly urged the would-be promoters of the affair to desist from their well-meant efforts, and turned her attention to Richard Cowes. Richard, having modestly but effectually scored the minimum number for the purpose, was in process of deciding whether a green or a canary-coloured Fluffy Hussy should be his boon companion for the rest of the day. Amaris settled the question for him by seizing the canary-coloured doll and thrusting it into his unwilling arms. She then led him away. At this, Mrs Bradley called for more darts, and, having scored the required number, secured the green doll, and, tucking it under her arm, where its pristine hue shrieked incoherently at her violet and orange woollen jumper suit, she turned to Malpas and Hilary Yeomond, who, with Clive Brown-Jenkins, were debating the important question of lunch, and said:

‘I wager that none of you can do as well as Richard Cowes and I. Now, children.'

Malpas screwed a monocle into his left eye and regarded the black-eyed old lady with enquiring interest.

‘No?' he drawled.

In Mrs Bradley's small looseleaf notebook that night the following memorandum appeared under the heading: ‘Darts. In order of throwing.'

Richard Cowes
. 200. A prize.

Malpas Yeomond
. 139.

Clive Brown-Jenkins
. 415. A prize. If he had scored another 35, he could have had two prizes.

Priscilla Yeomond
. 25.

Celia Brown-Jenkins
. 65.

Hilary Yeomond
. 110.

N.B.
– What about Francis Yeomond and Joseph Herring?

Still, nothing could be more deliciously obvious.

The sun rose at five twenty-nine (Summer Time) next morning, and Mrs Bradley rose with him. She stole downstairs and into the library. Over the mantelpiece was a heterogeneous collection of weapons belonging to all periods and many different countries. The weapons were arranged to form a large circle whose diameter was determined by half a dozen long spears. Mrs Bradley carried a stout mahogany chair over to the fireplace, stood on it, and inspected the weapons closely. Inside the large circle was a smaller concentric one formed of shorter spears, javelins, harpoons, throwing sticks and a single, broad-bladed assegai. Mrs Bradley fingered two or three of them, and finally shook her birdlike black head.

‘“Not there, not there, my child.” Felicia Dorothea Hemans,' she observed sorrowfully. ‘Ah, well.'

She got down and restored the mahogany chair to its former position. She thoughtfully gazed out of the window for a moment, and then left the library and ascended the stairs. She knocked at one of the bedroom doors, and, obtaining no answer, turned the handle and walked in. It was Rex's room. The lad lay on his left side so that his face was turned towards her. In spite of the fact that his mouth was wide open he was an attractive spectacle, flushed with sleep, his hair tousled and his slightly curling lashes long and dark. Mrs Bradley sighed with the instinctive wistfulness of a mother, and stepped softly to the bedside. She stroked his hair with a yellow claw gentle as the touch of roses, and said in her deep, delightful voice, ‘Wake up, my dear.'

Rex grunted, hoglike, and sat up.

‘Go over to Longer, Rex, and steal for me a javelin,' said Mrs Bradley crisply, when she judged that he was sufficiently wide awake to take in what she said.

Rex nodded economically.

Satisfied, Mrs Bradley smiled in her reptilian way and went out into the garden. Rex grinned, leapt out of bed, fell into the bath, and in less than fifteen minutes was cycling at a Clive Brown-Jenkins pace towards Longer.

Breakfast was at nine. Rex sat opposite his sister, and his wolfish enjoyment of the kidneys and bacon did not disguise from her the patent fact that he was very much excited. As soon as the meal was over, Margaret trailed him to the library. Following the direction of his eyes, she noticed that a new shaft had been added to the collection of spears over the mantelpiece.

Rex glanced over his shoulder.

‘Shut the door, kid,' he said.

‘Don't leave me outside,' said Mrs Bradley, entering. She closed the door behind her, and looked enquiringly at Rex, who jerked his head towards the bunch of spears on the wall.

‘There's the javelin, then,' said Mrs Bradley, with satisfaction. ‘Get it down, child.'

Rex obediently detached the implement and handed it down to her. Mrs Bradley laid it on the hearthrug.

‘And what else?' she enquired.